Wang Ada is 55 years old, and he is the owner of a cargo ship. He and his second wife, Ma Xiaoqin, are engaged in the water freight business in the Zhangjiagang section of the Yangtze River. Wang Ada has a son, 23 years old, who is working in Zhejiang Province. Wang Ada’s first wife accidentally fell into the water from the ship and died 20 years ago.

January 16, 2011, Zhangjiagang. As the Spring Festival approached, many boat owners docked their boats in the inland river and began busy buying New Year goods to prepare for the holiday. There were not many boats left on the Yangtze River. On this day, no one noticed anything unusual about one boat.
At noon on January 17, the Yangtze River Shipping Public Security Bureau suddenly received a report from a man saying that Wang Ada had disappeared for no reason.

The man who reported the case said he was Wang Ada’s friend. At 8:00 in the morning, he docked his boat next to Wang Ada’s boat. He called for Wang Ada to come out and talk, but no one responded. Later, Wang Ada’s wife, Ma Xiaoqin, came out to clean the boat. By 10:00, Ma Xiaoqin said the meal was ready, so she asked him to go onto her boat and help her look for Wang Ada.

He got on her boat and asked her about the situation. She said she had not seen her husband that morning. Later, he called Wang Ada’s older brother. His brother said Wang Ada had not come to his house, and he suspected Wang Ada had fallen into the river. He told the man to call the police first, and he would go to Wang Ada’s boat immediately.

According to the man who reported the case, Wang Ada’s boat had always been anchored in the middle of the river, which meant he had no possibility of going ashore at all. Therefore, the first judgment of people who heard about this was that Wang Ada had fallen into the water.

On the Yangtze River, because the wind and waves are sometimes strong, and the ship’s sides are narrow and without guardrails, it is not uncommon for boat people to lose their footing and fall into the water, especially in winter. If they are not rescued in time after falling into the water, the hope of survival is very slim.

Just as people were busy searching for Wang Ada everywhere and organizing boats for salvage, one person who had just seen the case report record had doubts in his heart. His name was Yang Xiangjun, and he was a police captain in the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Yangtze River Shipping Public Security Bureau. It was already near the end of the workday, but Yang Xiangjun still picked up the phone and wanted to confirm once again an important piece of information in this report record. What problem had he seen from a simple report record?

Yang Xiangjun: “Based on past experience, reporting a missing person is often sometimes a sign of a homicide case. Based on what I learned, I found something was not right. In terms of the time of the report, I felt something was not right. I felt that as the wife, Ma Xiaoqin reported the case too late.”
So what exactly happened before Wang Ada disappeared? Investigators learned that he had drunk alcohol the night before, which meant he might have fallen into the water after drinking. But this could not rule out another possibility.

Yang Xiangjun: “Another possibility is that after other ships approached his boat, they carried out other criminal activities. When the boat owner discovered them, they harmed the boat owner. This would be a water robbery case.”

According to police investigation, on the night before the incident, two unfamiliar ships had indeed approached Wang Ada’s boat, and they hurriedly left early in the morning.
However, through visits to surrounding boats that night, the police quickly ruled out this possibility and instead increased their suspicion of Ma Xiaoqin.

Yang Xiangjun: “If Ma Xiaoqin discovered something was wrong, her first reaction should have been to contact Wang Ada’s older brother, because his brother was Wang Ada’s boss and the one who gave him business. He should have been the one she trusted most. Then her second reaction should have been to report the case to us, but she did not take any measures.”

Yang Xiangjun noticed that Ma Xiaoqin could not even clearly explain exactly when her husband had disappeared. If something had really happened, how could a wife so close by know nothing at all?
Ma Xiaoqin told the police that she and Wang Ada slept in separate beds. She appeared very calm, unlike ordinary family members of a missing person. She deliberately avoided police questioning and spoke evasively. When the police asked her whether her husband had drunk alcohol that night, how much he had drunk, and with whom, she was somewhat incoherent.

During questioning, the police found that Ma Xiaoqin was very calm and did not show the grief she should have shown. Sometimes she even lowered her head and fiddled with her mobile phone, which was truly unusual.

Yang Xiangjun decided to talk to Ma Xiaoqin himself, and Ma Xiaoqin immediately confessed. She said that in fact, on the night before the incident, she had already discovered that her husband was missing, but she did nothing.

Yang Xiangjun asked Ma Xiaoqin how her marital relationship with Wang Ada was, and she said it was quite good. Yang Xiangjun was very puzzled. Since the marital relationship was good, why did the two sleep in separate beds? This was not consistent with common sense.

However, Wang Ada’s older brother told the police that in fact the marital relationship between Wang Ada and Ma Xiaoqin was very bad.

Ma Xiaoqin said it was good, while Wang Ada’s older brother said it was very bad. Which one was true?
Wang Ada’s older brother also brought another piece of news. After learning that his younger brother was missing, he was very anxious and immediately rushed to the boat to discuss with Ma Xiaoqin how to find someone to salvage him. During the conversation, one sentence from Ma Xiaoqin shocked him greatly. Ma Xiaoqin said, “If you have this money, you might as well keep it for your nephew’s schooling. He definitely will not be found.” This was not something a wife who had feelings for her husband would say.
The police judged that there must be something hidden here.

Sure enough, under police questioning, Ma Xiaoqin immediately changed her story and admitted that on the night before the incident, her husband Wang Ada had hit her because he disliked how she had parked the boat. The two quarreled, and it was she who accidentally caused her husband to fall into the water. Ma Xiaoqin said that she blocked him with her backhand and swung her hand, and Wang Ada slipped and fell into the water.

Ma Xiaoqin said that because she was frightened at the time and also felt resentment toward her husband, she did not reach out to save him. Instead, she returned to the cabin and acted as if nothing had happened, only pretending to look for him the next day.

The first day of salvage yielded no results.

The next day, just when people were somewhat disappointed, at 11:30 noon an astonishing result appeared. A corpse was salvaged, and according to the forensic doctor’s preliminary identification at the scene, the deceased had been dismembered with a sharp instrument. After several days of DNA comparison, the deceased was indeed the missing Wang Ada.

According to Ma Xiaoqin’s confession, during the meal the day before the incident, because the boat had been parked poorly, she was beaten and scolded by her husband. She was extremely angry and could not sleep even late at night. Thinking back on the day’s events, the more she thought about it, the more hatred she felt, so she developed the intention to kill.

Wang Ada was an alcoholic. He drank every day and was dizzy from drinking every day. If Ma Xiaoqin was even slightly disobedient, she would be beaten by him.

Ma Xiaoqin’s nerves were tense every day. She lived in fear all day long. She was afraid whenever she saw Wang Ada. Later, as soon as Ma Xiaoqin heard the sound of Wang Ada walking over, she knew he was going to hit her and scold her again. Ma Xiaoqin later thought that if Wang Ada died, she would be relaxed.

Late that night, Ma Xiaoqin put some sleeping pills in the water she gave her husband, and while he was sound asleep, she attacked. She noticed there was a bag beside the bed where her husband slept, and she casually wrapped the bag around her husband’s neck and strangled Wang Ada to death.

From accidentally falling into the water to premeditated murder, the nature of the case was already completely different. This meant that the cabin was very likely the first crime scene. Early the next morning, several police technical investigators boarded Wang Ada’s boat. Their task was to find evidence of Ma Xiaoqin’s murder here.

The police focused on inspecting the living cabin of the boat.

Bloodstains were an important target for police technical personnel to search for. In the center of the cabin was the living room. On one side was the kitchen, and on the other side were two adjacent bedrooms. The interior space was narrow and somewhat messy.

After preliminary inspection of the walls and floor, the technical personnel did not find obvious traces of the crime.

In the kitchen, the technical personnel found some tools used in the crime, including the bowl used for drinking water, the coal stove, and the mop, but these things had also been washed, so as evidence they were obviously insufficient. Time passed quickly, and the technical personnel began to feel anxious. They were very clear that if they wanted to make this case ironclad, they had to find other important evidence at the scene.

There were two sofas in the living room. When police technical personnel searched one crossbar of a sofa, they first saw something like a small piece of flesh, but later testing showed it was not human flesh. Then on a crossbar of the sofa on the right side, they found two blood spots smaller than grains of rice. Testing showed the blood spots belonged to Wang Ada.

At this point, the case had been solved.

Why would Ma Xiaoqin be so ruthless toward her own husband?

Ma Xiaoqin’s account was that she could not bear Wang Ada’s domestic violence and killed him in a fit of anger.

But Wang Ada’s older brother did not agree with this account. He believed that Ma Xiaoqin mainly wanted to seize Wang Ada’s property. By killing Wang Ada, Ma Xiaoqin could obtain a house and a boat, giving herself a guarantee for her old age. She was unwilling for these properties to eventually go to Wang Ada’s son, Wang Xiaowen, while she herself got nothing.

In addition to seeking money, Wang Ada’s older brother also said there was an even more shocking hidden matter, and in his view, this was another important motive for Ma Xiaoqin’s murder.
Wang Ada’s older brother said Ma Xiaoqin had an affair!

It turned out that as early as 2007, Wang Ada had injured his leg and head in a fall and could not do heavy work, so he handed over everything in the family to Ma Xiaoqin to manage. But after that, Wang Ada noticed that his wife’s attitude toward him had changed somewhat. He suspected that his wife was having an affair.

The claim that Ma Xiaoqin had an affair was not groundless. The police had also had some suspicions in their previous investigation and analysis, because it was usually difficult for a short and small woman to dispose of a corpse weighing nearly 100 kilograms by herself. So did Ma Xiaoqin have other accomplices? According to Ma Xiaoqin’s account, late at night on the day she killed her husband, because she could not drag the corpse alone, she did indeed make a phone call.

Ma Xiaoqin called her male friend and asked if he could help her throw Wang Ada into the Yangtze River, but after hearing what she said, the man was so frightened that he did not speak for 5 minutes, and then turned off his mobile phone.

Yang Xiangjun: “The fact that she could call this man first thing shows that their relationship was quite intimate. Her trust in him had already far exceeded her trust in anyone else.”

Through police screening, this man did not meet the conditions for committing the crime.

According to Ma Xiaoqin’s account, her husband’s domestic violence against her had a long history and was not accidental.

Ma Xiaoqin: “Wang Ada beat me every day, sometimes twice a day. When he beat me, he would not let me cry. If I cried, he would beat me again. You were not allowed to cry even once. If you cried once, he would continue beating you. He also threatened that I could not divorce him. If I dared to divorce, he threatened to kill my whole family. I was afraid, afraid of implicating my family.”

The police also investigated Ma Xiaoqin’s account of domestic violence.

Yang Xiangjun: “Her motive for the crime was that her resentment had accumulated for too long. Later, during our investigation, we learned that she had also reported Wang Ada’s domestic violence to the residents’ committee in her place of residence, and said, ‘Either I die or he dies.’ People who knew about her being subjected to domestic violence, especially friends with whom she had a particularly good relationship, also provided testimony for her.

In summary, she believed that the main reason her husband beat her was that the idea of male superiority and female inferiority was relatively serious in their area. Her account was that after Wang Ada lost the ability to do heavy physical labor, in order to show his authority, beating her seemed to be a means of controlling her, in order to establish his position as the overlord in the family.”

Based on the many traces at the scene and the evidence and testimony provided from multiple sources, the police ultimately determined that this was a homicide caused by domestic violence and conflict.